I just realized that at least the last two versions (0.4 and 0.5) of the Mac OS X builds distributed from the main SourceForge links are 32-bit binaries. I am almost certain they used to be 64-bit apps.

Just curious, why the change and are there any plans to compile future releases as 64-bit again?

Just curious, why the change and are there any plans to compile future releases as 64-bit again?

Why the change: because it is twice as fast to compile just 32-bit, a 32-bit-only executable is smaller and faster to download, and there is no advantage to running 64-bit (bitcoin doesn't need more than 4 gigabytes of memory, there are no performance-critical routines that would be faster running 64-bit, etc).

If there's a good reason to compile 64-bit, or if we ever drop support for 32-bit Macs then a 64-bit version would make sense.

How often do you get the chance to work on a potentially world-changing project?